The Weather Stone  remains a time-honored favorite method of “checking” weather conditions, be it in the real world or in the one in a tabletop game. You just can’t beat the accuracy. Perhaps it's been on my mind due to the "rocky" weather we’ve had recently, with "snowcrete" jamming up roads and pathways everywhere around me. Or maybe the fact that my eldest is now participating in Scouting that summons memories of Weather Stones seen during my own days of Scout Outings. Of course, if you want to go read deeply into my thoughts on the Weather Stone and its mysterious, clairvoyant powers, you can just go read the post linked above. What we haven't covered, aside from some breezy mentions in other posts, is the concept of weather itself in tabletop games: why it's important, how best to include it, and some off the wall things you might consider scattering into your own games. While this could have been a subsection in one of our larger " environment...

As we are all finally learning, with moral clarity comes absolute terror. The enemy is massive, the enemy is powerful, the enemy is cruel without a hint of mercy, remorse, or even camaraderie among their own. As we've seen time and again,  there is no crime they can't pin on those they've killed, those they've taken. This isn't a war story of complex motives, shifting values, and regrettable decisions. The simplicity is defined by horror they perpetrate to remind us that they  can  perpetrate on any one of us, anywhere. Now, as someone said describing a time much like our own, is the time of monsters . But we know monsters, we've been consuming media about fighting them our entire lives, which, for basically everyone below a certain age, naturally includes electronic games. Look, I don't want to be  that  nerd saying "video games prepared us for this moment," but I  am  the kind of nerd who will say we've been telling stories about times like t...

Given our recent New Years 2026 post , you’d think we’d be all done talking about the calamities of the real world. It'd be nice to think we could all  be past the national and international events that are weighing so many of us down. We can’t, though. It seems almost impossible to slink away from the heinous news megaphoning from the media day in and day out. We’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, to reject the evidence we see with our own eyes. Told not to believe that Charlotte Renee Good was murdered. Told to believe that she had it coming. Told to believe that the bullies are the real victims.  We’ve been told to comply with those same bullies' demands, and certainly not question whether those demands are lawful. We’ve been told we need to learn our lesson. Called names, assigned societal roles that don't fit us, and called "domestic terrorists" for merely indulging in the freedoms everyone in our nation is supposed to enjoy. How very dare we! It fee...

Well, if you’re seeing this, you, too, have made it through. What does it mean when the introductions to New Year’s posts sound like the last surviving notes of long-gone pirates? It’s a format I expect we’ll be seeing more and more frequently, as the collected accumulation of stress and tragedy continue to shatter any sense of time… or shared reality. Still, as they say, the horrors persist, but so do we… even when there’s a cost. So if our New Year’s Resolutions seem smaller-scale this year, it’s because it’s all we can do to keep going - a feeling I’m sure you, too, know all too well. Furiously scratching at the walls in panic, we tumble into 2026… but at least we’re doing it together. - B A : Before I sink into the state of what we’ve thrown this particular post entry into, I want to go over resolutions, past and present. Though, as noted last year , we can’t really dwell on what we didn’t accomplish, even if they're just bits of media we meant to attend to. My goals weren’t lo...

Brazil  (1985) is one of those movies that lurks in the back of our collective subconscious, its influence generally felt rather than referenced directly ( Futurama  shout-outs notwithstanding). An image, like the interrogation baby mask or the microscopic computer screens, will bubble up occasionally, and of course, there's the legendary ending... and everything Terry Gilliam had to do to make sure that ending even made it into the film. But  Brazil  is a movie with something to say, a visually and conceptually dense satire of the world into which it was released... and more appropriate to our own world with each passing year. So, for the fortieth anniversary of the American release, Never Say Dice is going to take a ride down the pneumatic tube into the all-too familiar nightmare of  Brazil , both as dark satire and as a holiday film. -  B A Side : Brazil certainly isn’t a Christmas movie that I’d watch every year. Come to think of it, this may be ...

There have been all sorts of physical "pranks" throughout time, often played on "nerds." The Wet Willie, the Hertz Donut , wedgies, noogies, snake bites, melvins (not the Melvins), towel snaps, titty twisters, swirlies, the Atomic Wedgie. Today though, we’re going to talk about pantsing. Or, really, almost the opposite of pantsing... Reverse Pantsing? That might be another wedgie-style "prank." This falls somewhere in between and is hard to describe, so we’ll just go over a quick rundown of yet another rule-breaking spell abuse meme. You may have caught a few more of these featured elsewhere on the blog .  To paraphrase in our own words, this one goes a little something like:  Player : I cast Immovable Object on the BBEG ’s pants. Distance spell so I don’t need to touch him. DM : Okay, but I don’t think it can be worn, held or carried. Player : Nope, read it. No saving throw either. I’m going to up cast it to 6th level to make it permanent. DM : Okay... ...